Who's Afraid Of…?

Representations & Reflections Studies in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures Volume 8 Edited by Uwe Baumann, Marion Gymnich and Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp Marion Gymnich (ed.) Who’s afraid of…? Facets of Fear in Anglophone Literature and Film With 2 figures V&R unipress Bonn University Press Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. ISBN 978-3-8471-0050-8 ISBN 978-3-8470-0050-1 (E-Book) Publications of Bonn University Press are published by V&R unipress GmbH. Copyright2012byV&Runipress GmbH, D-37079 Goettingen All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover image: Schönwiesner, Jan (www.12frames.de). Title: “Psycho”, source: photocase.com Printing and binding: CPI Buch Bücher.de GmbH, Birkach Printed in Germany Contents Marion Gymnich Fictions of Fear – Representations of Fear in Anglophone Literature and Audiovisual Media . ................... 7 Uwe Baumann Ruling by Fear / Ruled by Fear: Representations of Political Violence and Political Fear in English Renaissance Culture and Literature . ...... 27 Andrea Rummel Romanticism, Anxiety and Dramatic Representation . ...... 81 Gislind Rohwer-Happe The Dramatic Monologue and the Preservation of Victorian Fears . 97 Stella Butter Cultural Constructions of Fear and Empathy: The Emotional Structure of Relationships in George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda (1876) and Jonathan Nasaw’s Fear Itself (2003) . ...................109 Sara Strauß Facets of Children’s Fears in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Stream-of-Consciousness Fiction . ...................141 Marcel Inhoff Fearing, Loathing: Robert Lowell, Hunter S. Thompson and the Rise of Richard Nixon ................................157 Klaus Scheunemann Fight or Flight – Fear in War Movies . ...................181 6 Contents Christian Knöppler Remaking Fear: The Cultural Function of Horror Film Remakes . 193 Elena Baeva ‘A Little Gasp Went Around […] Like a Scream’ – The Use of Time-Tried Motifs of Fear in Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds ...............211 Barbara Puschmann-Nalenz Nothing to be Frightened of? The Expulsion of Fear in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Novel Never Let Me Go ............................229 Nina Liewald ‘Do not be frightened by my beard. I am a lover of America’ – Fear and Nostalgia in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist . ......245 Imke Lichterfeld ‘Timor mortis conturbat me. Fear of death disturbs me’ – Fear and Terror in Frank McGuinness’ Speaking like Magpies ............259 Antonio Wojahn Fear of Death in J.G. Ballard’s Crash .....................275 Contributors . ................................293 Marion Gymnich Fictions of Fear – Representations of Fear in Anglophone Literature and Audiovisual Media I. Introduction Fear in its different facets appears to constitute an intriguing and compelling subject matter for writers and screenwriters alike. After all, many literary texts, movies and TV productions address fear more or less extensively. Moreover, there are a number of (literary and audiovisual) genres where the depiction of fear is virtually a necessary element; Gothic fiction and the horror movie are among the most obvious cases in point. To a certain extent, the omnipresence of references to and representations of fear in works of fiction may certainly be accounted for by the fact that the depiction of fear often turns out to be a crucial ingredient in the process of creating suspense. Yet the almost overwhelming interest in fear one encounters in works of fiction is also encouraged by the fact that fear is a truly universal phenomenon. In the course of one’s life everyone is presumably bound to experience situations that trigger fear (in a more or less intense way). This is due to the fact that fear can be classified as a basic human emotion – an emotion that is closely linked to the survival instinct, which is in and of itself one of the essential forces governing human as well as animal life. What distinguishes fear from other, related emotional states is that fear is always associated with a particular object or situation, or, as Julian Hanich puts it, “[w]hile anxiety is free-floating, in fear we are afraid of something, whether real or imagined”.1 Fear is a perfectly normal reaction to situations where the individual is confronted with some kind of danger; yet there are also people who suffer from fears that are either excessive or that do not seem justified by the circumstances in which they occur at all. Phobias, which may be triggered by a wide range of objects and situations that are subjectively perceived to be threatening, are a case in point. Both fear as a natural reaction to danger and fear as a pathological state are referred to and 1Hanich, Julian. Cinematic Emotion in Horror Films and Thrillers: The Aesthetic Paradox of Pleasurable Fear. New York/London: Routledge, 2010. 19. 8 Marion Gymnich explored in countless works of fiction. Of course fictional texts may vary con- siderably in terms of how prominent, how detailed and how psychologically sound the depiction of fear is. In addition, the representation of fear in a particular work of fiction is inevitably shaped by historically and culturally variable notions of human psychology. The study of the phenomenon of fear from the point of view of psychology can be traced to the very beginnings of psychology as a discipline.2 Sigmund Freud already established the basic distinction between fear as a temporary state, i.e. as a reaction to a specific situation, on the one hand, and fear as a person’s dis- position or character trait on the other hand.3 According to psychological studies, fear is among the most basic and universal human emotions.4 Thus, one may safely assume that fear is known in all cultures and all historical periods, even if one has to admit that emotions tend to be culture-specific to a certain extent.5 Fear may be triggered by the perception of physical danger as well as by situations which threaten an individual’s self-esteem, such as exams and public performances.6 Fear as a temporary affective phenomenon is defined by psychologists as a state that is characterised by an increased activity of the nervous system, combined with the awareness of being excited, a feeling of suspense and the subjective impression of being threatened.7 Like any other emotional state, fear can be described in terms of physiological and behavioural-expressive parameters as well as the subjective cognitive assessment of the emotional state.8 The physiological parameters of fear include multiple processes in the central nervous system as well as muscular reactions, for instance ocular movements.9 The behavioural-expressive parameters include facial expressions, vocalization and movements.10 In psychological experiments, fear is measured by means of different methods. Reports of a test person grant access to the subjective parameters, i.e. the way an individual experiences fear on the cognitive level, whereas the 2Cf.Stöber, Joachim and Ralf Schwarzer.“Angst.”In:Jürgen H. Otto, Harald A. Euler and Heinz Mandl (eds.). Emotionspsychologie: Ein Handbuch. Weinheim: Beltz, 2000. 189–98, 196. 3 Cf. Krohne, Heinz Walter. Psychologie der Angst. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2010. 14. 4 Cf. for instance Hock, Michael and Carl-Walter Kohlmann. “Angst und Furcht.” In: Ver- onika Brandstätter and Jürgen H. Otto (eds.). Handbuch der Allgemeinen Psychologie – Motivation und Emotion. Göttingen et al.: Hogrefe, 2009. 623–32, 623. 5 Cf. for instance Heelas, Paul. “Emotion Talk across Cultures.” In: Rom HarrØ (ed.). The Social Construction of Emotions. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986. 234–66. 6 Cf. Hock and Kohlmann. “Angst und Furcht.” 624 as well as Stöber and Schwarzer. “Angst.” 192. 7 Cf. Krohne. Psychologie der Angst. 17. 8 Cf. Krohne. Psychologie der Angst. 15. 9 Cf. Krohne. Psychologie der Angst. 49–63. 10 Cf. Krohne. Psychologie der Angst. 43. Fictions of Fear 9 method of recording a person’s heartbeat falls back on physiological parameters of fear, for example. Neither of these methods is regarded as an ideal way of measuring fear, however.11 One of the reasons for this is that the different sys- tems that are involved in the experience of fear do not necessarily react simultaneously. In other words, the reactions on the different levels do not always set in at the same time; nor do they invariably stop simultaneously: If a person is suddenly faced with a dangerous situation, the behavioural reaction (for instance: running away) is typically activated more quickly than physiological reactions such as an accelerated beating of the heart or an increased frequency of breathing.12 The different physiological reactions may also be differentiated quite clearly in terms of how fast the respective reaction sets in. A person’s heartbeat is typically accelerated before the frequency of breathing increases, for instance.13 Although people without expertise in psychology in all likelihood are largely unaware of the interaction between the different parameters of the experience of fear, the symptoms mentioned above tend to play an important role in fictional representations of fear as well. Fictional depictions of fear do not just fall back on a representation of subjective assessments of a situation or behavioural-expressive parameters of fear; very often they allude to physiological parameters such as the heart beginning to beat faster or an increased frequency of breathing as well. II. Fear on the Plot Level – Thrills for the Reader and Viewer Given the fact that the experience of fear is a universal phenomenon, it seems hardly surprising that one encounters more or less extensive descriptions of fear in a wide range of literary texts and audiovisual productions.

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